What Does the Research Say About SEL and Academic Integration?

Key Points:

• We’re sharing key takeaways from the Igniting Lifelong Learning Webinar Series, Part 1.
• SEL and academics go hand-in-hand. When students know how to set goals, persist through challenges, and collaborate effectively, they are better prepared to learn and succeed academically.
• Key components of SEL and academic integration include quality student-teacher relationships, inviting students to engage in learning that is meaningful to them and their communities, and aligning social and emotional skills with academic standards.

Academic recovery continues to be a top priority in schools across the country. To support student learning, we need to deeply understand how students learn and progress, then use this knowledge to better support their academic achievement.

CASEL’s new three-part webinar series, Igniting Lifelong Learning, explores research, practice, and policy around academic instruction integrated with SEL, an evidence-based strategy for supporting and deepening student learning.

On April 16, Ally-Skoog Hoffman, CASEL’s Senior Director of Research & Learning, kicked off the series by building a shared understanding of academic instruction integrated with SEL, exploring key components of doing this work effectively, and sharing examples alongside:

• Dr. Sara Rimm-Kaufman, Commonwealth Professor of Education, University of Virginia

• Dr. Joseph Polman, Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development, Associate Dean for Research, University of Colorado Boulder, School of Education

Watch the webinar recording below, or read on for key takeaways.

What exactly is “academic instruction integrated with SEL?”

“It’s also important to combine these caring classrooms with high expectations for learning and the opportunity for really rich learning experiences. We recently asked 45 students of color to tell us about a time when someone showed them respect, and one thing that came up was when their learning and growth was prioritized, when teachers really cared about the students’ learning and demonstrated that. One middle school student said, ‘When my old math teacher gave me harder math because I finished the other math really fast.’ That really stands out in my mind as a message about the integration between social and emotional learning and academic learning.” —Rimm-Kaufman

“Research shows that SEL is critical to supporting not only academic recovery, but growth. It supports developmental skills including goal-setting, constructive problem-solving, responsible decision-making, motivation, self-management skills. Growth in these social and emotional skills supports academic growth, and independent studies have shown that SEL is a powerful tool for boosting academic achievement. 

“A 2022 meta-analysis that involved over 500 studies and about a million students found that universal school-based SEL programs, from early childhood to high school, have consistent and positive impacts on student academic achievement and student attitudes. On top of that, we see that these impacts stand the test of time. A 2017 meta-analysis included over 80 studies and over 100,000 students worldwide and found that in follow-up studies conducted years after students participated in the interventions, their academic performance was on average 13 percentile points higher than those students who didn’t participate.”—Skoog-Hoffman

What does SEL and academic integration look like in practice?

“In a project called Compose Our World, we used a framework called CAPE, which stands for caring, advocacy, perspective taking, and empathy. That looks like inviting students to do projects that are meaningful to them and their families, and learning something that matters to them. Students then connected this to interdisciplinary learning and created media pieces that tried to make a difference by communicating information to others. 

“For example, several kids did projects related to smoking and the effects on individuals and communities. One of them had a grandfather who had been diagnosed with lung cancer. When kids start to see content in the classroom as important to their lives and to the people they care about, they begin to feel like they belong in a classroom. Because a classroom isn’t just a place to learn stuff that doesn’t feel like it relates to them. It’s a place where they’re integrating all this information in a rich, creative, problem-solving atmosphere where they navigate challenges with the help of their peers and their teacher, and then try to create projects that will make a difference.”—Polman

“Fourth grade students were creating electrical circuits and understanding how they work, understanding renewable and nonrenewable resources. You practically see a lightbulb go off as kids are learning about this: ‘Wait a second, if we keep doing what we’re doing, we won’t have enough of these nonrenewable resources for the next century.’ The kids want to leap into action, and a program we created called Connect Science offers a way to guide teachers and students to work together to figure out possible solutions to the problems they’ve discovered. One classroom did what they called an ‘energy carnival.’ Their goal was to educate students and families about the issue of nonrenewable resources. They showed them what circuits were, talked about where electricity comes from, and gave solutions for what could be changed in people’s homes. They even gave a survey at the end to see if their carnival had an impact on participants. Instead of just saying ‘We’ve got a problem,’ and then moving on to the next unit, teachers are giving students the opportunity to learn SEL and engage with their community in a meaningful way to produce a change.”—Rimm-Kaufman

What do you say when educators feel that they don’t have enough time for SEL?

“Whether you’re thinking about it or not, you’re already doing it. You’re implicitly participating in and facilitating SEL, even if you’re not explicitly planning how you’re doing so. With that in mind, I would argue that by integrating SEL and doing it mindfully instead of doing it accidentally, you can actually do the things you’re already trying to do better: things like greater engagement, greater equity, deeper learning that is relevant and meaningful to students.”—Polman

“Many activities that are often considered SEL activities, like shared norms or shared rules in the beginning of the year, operate in ways that prevent problems down the road. So, it can be very proactive as opposed to reactive. And I would say, imagine that you’re rolling out this new math lesson. What is it the students will need to be able to do for this lesson to go well? Do they need to listen to each other, take turns, manage feelings of anxiety while simultaneously engaging in challenging work? What are some of the social and emotional skills that students need to be able to bring to the table before they can do this lesson?” —Rimm-Kaufman

For more on SEL and academic integration, register for the three-part Igniting Lifelong Learning webinar series. Join us on May 23 at 12 p.m. EDT for Part 2: School and classroom strategies that integrate SEL and academic learning.

Related Posts:

• Inquiry-Based Learning: What Happens When We Put Kids in Control of Their Learning?
• Let’s Make Schools Places Where Students Want to Be
• Nurturing Tomorrow’s Leaders by Making SEL a Way of Life

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